Mike Clark. Agent X. The Ambassador. He’s one of the most pivotal, most essential figures in electronic music history, holding down the underground for Detroit house music before such a thing existed. In that time he’s worn a number of guises. Clark was part of one of the early DJ groups in the [...]
Electronic dance music, or “EDM” as the world has come to know it, has been around for decades. Since 2012, the “umbrella genre” has experienced an economic explosion the likes of which no one could have foreseen in terms of its multi-billion-dollar profitability. Make no mistake, though, that the so-called “EDM boom” was actually [...]
House, Techno, & the 80s: How black culture birthed the EDM era [Part One] Anybody who’s been in involved in dance music for the last ten years or so could easily list off some of the biggest producers in the scene: Avicii, Skrillex, Swedish House Mafia, deadmau5, or Calvin Harris, to name a few. While the influence these major [...]
It’s time for sonic reparations “Let me tell you something about house music. It’s not just a groove; house is a feeling…” *This article was originally published on September 2, 2016 So goes “The Word” — a classic a cappella by Chicago producer Aaron-Carl Ragland, since sampled on countless white label records played in club [...]
February is Black History Month - Check out the contribution of Black artists in house and techno. The contribution of Black artists in house and techno are undeniable and pervasive. In fact, the bedrock of electronic music owes much of its legacy to Black artists. From Chicago and Detroit, the cities that started it all, its local pioneers wove dance music culture’s [...]
Jesse Saunders and Vince Lawrence are among the interviewees featured in the 90-minute film A new documentary digging into the queer Black origins of house premiered at Sundance Film Festival last month. Directed by filmmaker Elegance Bratton, Move Ya Body: The Birth Of House looks at the infamous 1979 Disco Demolition night and its bearing on the [...]
We chat to some of Soho House’s music friends – Carl Craig, Juan Atkins, Norman Jay MBE and Giles Smith (Secretsundaze) – to get their take on dance music and the inspirational figures that made our playlist this month Listen here With a nod to Black History Month, our new Dance Music Is Black [...]
As house music spread beyond its Chicago birthplace in the late 1980s, no city soaked up the sound quite as eagerly as New York. This was in a large part down to an ecosystem of promoters, labels, record shops and artists that extends far beyond the accepted canon of major-name DJs and producers. Here, Bruce [...]
Image courtesy of Google House Music and its legendary Black creators from Chicago got the ultimate shout-out to start Black History Month. On Saturday, Feb. 1, Google highlighted the genre with a Doodle on its search engine. “In celebration of Black History Month, today’s music video Doodle, celebrates house music, a genre with roots in Chicago’s [...]
The April 26th event at The Ramova Theater will be the first of its kind in the city. A new electronic music conference is coming to Chicago this spring, a first-of-its-kind event for the city. The aptly-titled Chicago Electronic Music Conference will take place at The Ramova Theatre on April 26th. It's designed [...]
